Californication
by Sarie Cigam
Summary: A transfer student from L.A. comes to Hogwarts and gets put in Slythrin... much to Draco's surprise. She torments him incessently and... well... you'll see. No, this isn't a Mary-Sue. some Harry Bashing. Chapter 1 up


Californication  
  
By Sarie Cigam  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own Draco Malfoy, Hogwarts, or any other places and/or characters associated with the Harry Potter series books. Lyrics to `All Star' © Smash Mouth, not me.  
  
Note: This is not a Mary-Sue. I know it may look that way, but believe me, it's not. Also, all opinions in this story about characters are my own personal opinions and do not reflect the opinions of anyone else.  
  
All flames subject to placement on the Oh My Sweet Flamers page at Oh My Sweet Insanity.  
  
Rating: PG-13 for language and adult themes.  
  
Acknowledgments: Thanks to Sailor Elysion for giving me Draco-angst ideas, and thanks to Adnap for reading my `I Love Draco' lists.  
  
The Slythrens never really expected the transfer student.  
  
The girl from California with the gold-blond hair and gray-green eyes looked like a good match with the Hufflepuff house, where all the airheads belonged, or maybe even Griffandor. Why would this blond be put with them? Didn't Dumbledor think that they would tear her apart?  
  
Not that they would. Everyone thought that. Then again, what else were they supposed to think with stereotypes like Millicent and Draco running around? Of course, Draco wasn't quite your normal stereotype... the rumors were that he was disturbed. He was an absolute genius on the Quiddich field lately, and he could brew up any potion you could ask for, but he was withdrawn and snappish.  
  
Imagine the Slythren's surprise when Kat Crebain was placed at their house table on that foggy Monday morning! She waltzed to the table, her blond hair floating behind her like a living being, and sat herself down right next to Vincent Crabbe. "Hello," she said cheerily, scooping herself a pile of hash browns from the plate in front of her. "What's your name?"  
  
Crabbe looked at her, puzzled, and grunted "Vincent Crabbe. Everyone calls me Crabbe."  
  
"Nice to meet you!" Kat smiled. She leaned over Crabbe and poked Draco's shoulder, and he whirled around glaring.  
  
"Who are you?" he sneered, looking her up and down. She looked like a stupid fruit to him.  
  
"Kat Crebain, or didn't you hear Dumbledor speaking? Who are you?" she asked.  
  
"Draco Malfoy," Draco growled, "And don't ever touch me again, Crebain."  
  
"My name's Kat," she corrected, sitting back down in her seat. By now the whole table was staring. No one corrected Draco if they wanted to maintain some speck of self-esteem. Frankly, no one corrected Draco lately if they wanted to keep their faces in-tact.  
  
To everyone's surprise, Draco ignored her. He went back to his scrambled eggs without so much as a sneer. Meanwhile, Kat was looking down the other end of the table to more of the bewildered Slythrins, chatting up a storm.  
  
"This year ought to be interesting," Draco grumbled under his breath.  
  
  
  
Kat proved to be a master of many of the magical arts. Her training at the California Institute of Magical Sciences had prepared her for her move to Europe, and she was loving the culture experiences. She didn't mind the stares when she walked into potions, robes open at the front, an American Flag sequin T-shirt blaring her nationality. Rather, she grinned back with sparklingly white teeth and sat down as close to Draco as possible. It seemed her goal in life to get him to speak to her. However, through the first two weeks at school, Draco paid as much attention to her as he would a chair or desk. Still, she would not leave him alone.  
  
As the weeks passed, it became obvious why she had been chosen for Slythrin. She was far more intelligent than she seemed at first glance, and she was crafty and able to manipulate people. Already she had stopped Professor McGonagal from giving her a low mark on a test just through sweet-talk and promises that she would do better next time. Despite her manipulations of the teachers, Kat was a good person.  
  
She was also an exquisite Quiddich player. She came to the Slythrin's first practice clad in a T-shirt and jeans - Muggle clothing by anyone's standards - and walked straight up to Draco, demanding a spot on the team.  
  
"Show me what you can do, Crebain," Draco sneered, stepping back from the field borders. Kat nodded, mounted her U.S.-made Cedar 2000, kicked off and shot up into the sky. She held the broom loosely with one hand, her other hand resting on the handle. She clung to the broom with her knees, but her legs still swung freely. From the moment she kicked off, though, Draco could see a flight style in her unlike the style of any of his other team members.  
  
She was absolutely at home on the broom, even more so than the `prodigy' Harry Potter. It was tempting to say that she flew like the broom was part of her, but it was more like she was a part of the sky than anything. Instead of the stiffer movements a broom generally forced upon the rider, Kat flew like a bird with frequent shallow dives and swerves. She had absolute control over her movements, though, and Draco knew she was swerving on purpose. She seemed to be having the time of her life up there, even though she was only warming up.  
  
"Crebain, can you catch a snitch?" Draco demanded as he mounted his own broom.  
  
"Can I?" she laughed. "Call me Kat, Draco!"  
  
Draco scowled to himself as he dragged the heavy oaken box containing the practice Quiddich objects onto his broom. He rose in a very controlled manner to meet Kat, who had rolled her broom over and was hanging onto it upside-down like some ridiculous monkey. Draco tried not to notice that her bra was showing. None of the other girls in school wore such scandalous clothing.  
  
"If you lose my snitch, I'll make sure you're out here all week finding it," Draco grunted as he opened the box lid. With careful movements he peeled open the tiny shield-shaped door that housed the Slythrin snitch and pulled it out. The little golden ball made a sort of squeaking noise as it warmed up to the familiar touch of Draco's hand, and rested contentedly there without so much as a wingbeat. Of course, since house-specific snitches became acclimated to the seeker of that house, they were never used in the game. The Slythrin snitch came to Draco's hand like a tamed songbird.  
  
And Kat knew that as well as everyone else did, but she feigned ignorance as Draco growled about the difficulties of runaway snitches.  
  
"All right, Crebain," Draco said, shifting the snitch to his left index finger and thumb, "Go fetch." He hurled the snitch towards the center of the field, and the tiny golden ball took the hint and flew off as quickly as its little silver wings could take it.  
  
"All right, Draco," Kat smiled, flipping right-side-up and gliding past him. "I wish you would call me Kat." With a laugh she dove at a near 90-degree angle towards the ground, leaning and merging with her broom. Draco briefly saw her resemblance to a diving Peregrine Falcon before she pulled up a mere foot from the ground and flew along the grass, looking upwards. She pulled into a climb and circled the three golden goal hoops at one end, then swerved sharply left and flew straight towards Draco.  
  
"Want a challenge, Draco?" she shouted, a wide grin pasted on her face. "Look behind you!"  
  
Before Draco could turn, Kat was upon him. She reached over and grabbed something behind his right shoulder. Draco extricated himself from her arms and scowled as she showed him the snitch, lying peacefully in her cupped hand.  
  
"Good," he grumbled, snatching the snitch from her. "You can come on the team for our first game next week. One of our chasers graduated last year, so you can take his place."  
  
"Very nice, thank you!" Kat flew off away from Draco, laughing and singing while Draco descended.  
  
"Are you coming?" he demanded. She responded with a few more lines of a song that Draco was sure was popular in the U.S., but that he had never heard. Maybe it was a muggle song. `She certainly dresses like a common non-magic middle-class slob,' Draco thought to himself as he pulled the doors open.  
  
Hey now, you're an all star,  
  
Get the game on, go play  
  
Hey now, you're a rock star,  
  
Get the show on, get paid  
  
Draco muttered irritably to himself as he walked back towards his dormitory.  
  
  
  
Needless to say, the Slythrins won their Quiddich match against the Griffandors. Harry was enraged. Kat had stolen the snitch from in front of him by pulling a dangerous-looking stunt that cut him off and coaxed the snitch into her hand all in one movement. To add insult to injury, in the first ten minutes of the game Draco had scored twice and one of his teammates, once, while the Griffandors hadn't scored at all. Draco didn't boast much, though; Fred and George had left the Griffandors last year with a terribly lopsided team. They lacked skilled beaters, and since all three of their chasers had graduated, the team was made of almost entirely second-and-third-years.  
  
Harry was, of course, the team captain. Draco was bitter about that; while he had earned his spot as captain by practicing, he suspected Potter got the job just because of his fame. Potter and his friends whispered that Draco was captain only because of his father's gifts of broomsticks in their second year, but Draco thought that was petty and immature. His father had been arrested earlier in the year, everyone knew that, and that had made Draco's life all the more difficult. He heard what they said about him: `Death-eater', `Voldemort's heir', `dark-arts-using bastard'. He would be the first to admit that he had been a brat up until the fourth year, nursing his wounded pride from Potter's insult to him in the first year, but his father's arrest had sobered the boy up to the facts of life. If he held that grudge, it would be him in Azkaban next time.  
  
But of course he still hated Potter.  
  
Everyone hated Potter.  
  
Draco couldn't say exactly when the changes began in his rival. It was after the fourth year, after his summer fighting Voldemort that it happened. Harry became bitter and angry, probably from the hundreds of deaths he had witnessed in those few short months. He maintained his close bond of friendship with Ron and Hermione; Draco knew they'd never break off what they had. They would be friends or more until they all died. Draco envied that. Crabbe and Goyle followed him only because they were afraid not to.  
  
  
  
"Draco, wanna walk to potions with me?"  
  
After nearly two months of listening to her chatter and constant cheerfulness, Draco was starting to weaken. He gave in more often to her, following her to classes or talking to her at breakfast. Crabbe had moved from Draco's left side to sit next to Goyle, and whether he realized that it had happened or not, Kat had maneuvered herself into a seat right beside Draco.  
  
"All right," he replied, resigned to his fate. He hefted his school bag over one shoulder, loading two extra quills and a notebook into the bag's bulging pockets. He followed Kat down the dungeon steps, noting as he went the change in his fellow Slythrins' attire. Tod, a fellow Slythrin 7^th year, was walking right behind Draco, sporting a blue T-shirt with `I Love Briton' printed on it in red. In front, a 7^th-year girl wore jeans and a short, rather tight pink Roxy shirt that Draco recognized as one of Kat's shirts. Either the girl was passing around her clothing catalogues, or she was passing around her shirts. Perhaps she was doing both.  
  
The group of Slythrins sauntered into class ahead of the Griffandors and sat down on their well-worn and familiar stools, their burned and patched cauldrons sitting in front of them. As usual, Kat sat beside Draco. Snape stood at the front of the classroom, surveying his students like a hawk eyeing potential prey. When the Griffandors wandered in, he focused on them. When Potter and his friends walked in, Snape barked out "Ten points from Griffandor for being constantly late."  
  
After seven years of abuse, Potter didn't respond anymore.  
  
"Today we will be making a particularly caustic grout-cleaner. I will warn you that this substance is highly poisonous in its first stages, so I want no foolishness today," Snape said quietly. "You may begin. The instructions were given to you yesterday, so I hope that no one asks me what they ought to be doing."  
  
Neville looked worriedly over at Hermione, but as usual Hermione had an extra copy of the notes, which she gave to Neville under the table. Draco pretended not to see.  
  
After fifteen minutes of chopping leaves and mincing beetles the students had to allow their cauldrons to boil gently for fifteen more minutes. Draco leaned back while his concoction bubbled quietly, his eyes closed and his hands behind his head.  
  
"So, why don't you ever use first names?" Kat asked suddenly, mimicking Draco's movements, her arms behind her head.  
  
Draco opened one eye and muttered, "Why should I tell you, Crebain?"  
  
"Because I want to know, Malfoy," Kat said mockingly, grinning at him.  
  
Draco rolled his eyes and said, "You're ridiculous."  
  
"Not any more than you are, Malfoy," Kat replied.  
  
"Why are you so flippant?" He asked, sitting up.  
  
"Why should I tell you?"  
  
Draco glared at her for a moment before breaking into quiet laughter. This sound was so unfamiliar that Crabbe and Goyle looked over to make sure their leader wasn't choking. "You know, Kat, I find you rather amusing."  
  
Kat gave Draco a huge smile. "I knew I'd get through to you," she said, eyes sparkling with glee.  
  
"What do you mean?" Draco demanded.  
  
"You just called me Kat!"  
  
"I did not!" Draco said with dismay. "Did I really?"  
  
"Yep," Kat said, patting him on the head.  
  
Draco folded his arms and put his chin on them, sulking. "You tricked me," he muttered.  
  
"Yes, I did. Now you know why I was put in Slythrin," Kat said. She picked up the stirring spoon on the table in front of her and stirred her potion, then glanced at Draco. Without warning she ran her hand the wrong way over Draco's head, causing his hair to spike up and causing him to shout in alarm.  
  
"What are you doing??" He demanded, glaring at her.  
  
"Your hair looks better that way," she said offhandedly. She then wiped the hair gel from his hair into her cauldron.  
  
Snape, who had been alerted to the Slythrin tables by Draco's shout, not ran over to Kat and snarled "What are you doing? Do you realize how dangerous this potion is??"  
  
"Yeah," Kat said, shrugging. "That gel is a preservative. The potion will last longer now."  
  
Snape gave her a queer look and examined her potion, which had stopped fizzing and was bubbling quietly again. "Fine... ten points to you, Kat, for your intuition and ten to you, Draco, for supplying the hair gel."  
  
Harry shot a look of pure venom at Snape, then turned to glare at Kat, but when he looked at her an expression crossed his face that deeply disturbed Malfoy, for some reason. He in turn glanced across at Potter, his eyes narrowed. Potter seemed to realize he was staring and turned back to his cauldron.  
  
"Thank you for screwing up my hair, Kat," Draco muttered.  
  
"You're welcome," Kat replied arily. 


End file.
